If you’re a frequent reader of my blog, you know that I’m constantly on the lookout for new and unique technologies in affiliate marketing.
It hit me the other day that there is an unparalleled technology used by AvantLink that I haven’t really heard much about even though it has been around for 5 years already! They call it Affiliate Link Syndication, and it essentially allows affiliates to offer deals-oriented consumers an RSS subscription to AvantLink-powered dynamic deal feeds (which may be focused on one or multiple merchants); so that any time the customer clicks a link from their feed reader, the affiliate gets a new cookie set.
They also blogged about it last year:
…did you know that in addition to publishing promotional-related (dynamically updated) content on your sites, you can also promote RSS subscriptions to those feeds? Think about that for a second. If you’re site visitors subscribe to one of these RSS feeds from AvantLink that you promote, then your tracking details are embedded in all links within that feed … for the life of that feed subscription!
Fast forward months later, and to that RSS feed sitting in someone’s reader or live bookmarks after the 60 day cookie from the click is long expired. The shopper you enticed to subscribe sees a killer deal from one of our retailers, clicks the link directly from their RSS reader or live bookmark, and there you have it; your Affiliate cookie is set again for another 60 days (or whatever cookie life the particular merchant offers).
This development really does spell out a different level of customer engagement and ownership — one that goes beyond what the standard “click-on-a-website-link -> cookie” path does, as the clicks then come from someone’s personal RSS subscriptions (which they themselves took the time to set up and configure).
I don’t believe there is another affiliate network who offers affiliate tracking-embedded RSS feeds that can be promoted as subscriptions. Belated kudos to AvantLink on this development. I hope it inspires other affiliate networks and/or external tool creators too. After all, competition should breed improvement.
Thank you for putting this out there, Geno. I’m not sure too many Affiliates know about promoting RSS feed subscriptions to their site users, so it’s nice of you to write it up. In addition to actually publishing the content of the feed itself, get that quick call to action in as well, something like: “Subscribe to RSS feed to be notified of the latest promotions”. We even offer RSS icons to use for your subscribe links.
Next I will hope to inspire you to feature the ALE 😉 GM
I wasn’t sure too many affiliates know about this either. That’s why I decided to describe it in detail. It’s well-worth it, Gary, and once again, I applaud you and AvantLink for always striving to make your network better, and more affiliate-friendy.
Re Affiliate Link Encoder: I totally love it, and think it can really pick up if you put together a WP plugin for it. 😉
Geno, thanks for that 🙂 Re: the ALE. A plugin is not necessary. We provide a short line of javascript for Affiliates, and all they have to do is place that site-wide in WP (for example the header file) and that’s it. Works the same way from large, database powered sites to static web pages.
Once that small line of JS is installed, we will scan the page for either direct links or KWs, and convert those to Affiliate tracking links on the end user’s browser. So that means Google et al don’t even see the tracking code.
I will be doing an ALE webinar in a couple of weeks, and you should join us for that. Should only take around 20-30 minutes tops.
Sounds real cool. Will you be recording the webinar, Gary?
Geno, I do plan to record and YouTube upcoming webinars for both Affiliates and merchants.